Wraithbound, p.16
Wraithbound, page 16
“We have to get out of here. We have to do something,” Rae said. His voice was laced with panic. How was he supposed to protect his sister in the middle of this? How could this be happening?
“We can’t exactly punch our way to safety,” La said.
“Don’t know,” Mahk said. “He’s certainly going to try.”
The big man gestured to the door they had just exited. Bondwright Indrit ducked through the frame. He had fully drawn his earth elemental, and now towered chest and shoulders over the crowd. His spiritblade was a length of flinty stone as long as Rae was tall, shot through with veins of pewter and gold. As Indrit stood to his full height, a round of startled firelock shots from the justicars banged off him, but the searing bullets had no effect on his stony skin, and it wasn’t long before people were falling over themselves to get out of his way. At the gangway, the lawbinder was conferring with his guards, snapping orders and reorganizing picketlines.
“Follow him!” La shouted. She pushed past Rae and squirmed between Mahk and the wall. She fell into an easy jog, trailing in Indrit’s wake. Rae shook himself out of his stupor and followed his sister.
The once pristine grounds of the market square were transformed into a battlefield. Tents lay broken and trampled underfoot, along with the discarded merchandise of the shops sticking out of the mud. There were bodies, too, dressed in a wide variety of clothes. Fine silks lay bloody next to farmer’s roughspun. Some were naked, startled from their beds by the breach horn, then cut down before they could recover. They had died here, hopelessly, pointlessly.
The crowd was starting to get the idea of what Rae and La were trying to accomplish. A mob fell in behind them, the most desperate of the desperate: mothers clutching dead children to their breasts, fathers carrying their wives, old men shambling forward on canes that had recently served as cudgels, the tips still bloody. The line of guards watched them come with growing nervousness. The lawbinder stood behind the picket, flaming sword held casually in one hand. As they got close, the man flared his angel and beat burning wings, rising slowly into the air.
“Stonebinder! Turn aside, and you will be spared,” the lawbinder shouted. His voice carried like thunder through the square, echoing off buildings, filling the air. “This is the word of Fulcrum!”
“Screw your bloody treehouse,” Indrit answered. “I’m getting on that ’ship!”
The crowd let out a ragged cheer. The lawbinder grimaced, then nodded to the guards at his feet.
“Get down!” La shouted. She grabbed Rae and Mahk, pulling them to the earth. Rae’s face went into a puddle of muck. His sister had acted just in time. A hail of firelock stitched the air above them, hissing off Indrit’s skin, but even the ricochets were fatal to those following in the stonebinder’s wake. Flaming bullets burst into an inferno as they splattered off his bulk, flash-searing the desperate refugees trailing behind. Other shots went wide, cutting through the crowd like hail through wheat. A chorus of screams went up, replaced by the roar of exploding shot as lungs were turned to ash and tongues cracked under the blazing heat of the magically imbued bullets. A child tumbled from his mother’s arms, eyes boiling into pitch as the firelock opened a gate into the elemental plane of Fire inside his skull. The woman’s scream of horror was cut off when her blood turned to steam in her veins, bursting through her skin in hissing fissures.
“Do not oppose me, lawbinder!” Indrit bellowed. He paid no heed to the death around him. Neither did the justicar. “I’ve broken brighter wings than yours!”
The justicar smiled and flexed the fingers of his empty hand. Coils of flame crawled across his knuckles.
“Very well, heretic,” the lawbinder said. “We will do this the ancient way.”
In an instant, the justicar’s form shifted, flames turning to waves of golden light. He leapt into the air, spreading his wings and flying over the picket line, soaring high above the crowd. His skin turned the color of beaten bronze, and his clothes shimmered with silver light. It was difficult to look at the lawbinder directly without shielding your eyes. Screams of pain and panic turned to awe, as the angel’s true form was revealed. They couldn’t help themselves. Glory washed down from on high.
The justicar fell like a comet. He held his spiritblade over his head, both hands wrapped firmly around the hilt, the blade burning white-hot. Flecks of golden light trailed in his wake, singing in crystalline voices as they dropped. He landed on Indrit sword first, swinging straight for the man’s head.
Indrit was ready. He deflected the lawbinder’s blow with that massive sword. Sparks flew as the two spiritblades scraped across each other, the planes of Order and earth sending a shower of light and magma into the air. The force of the impact sent a shock wave across the square, flattening the few stragglers who had not been struck down or already thrown themselves into cover. The glass of every window facing the spire shattered, almost musically. Indrit shrugged it off. The angel came at him again, golden blade fast in the justicar’s hands. The earthbinder blocked the swing with one massive fist, a backhand swipe that deflected the blade and clipped the lawbinder’s arm. Indrit’s knuckles cratered the ground. Rae covered his head and pressed himself deeper into the muck. The sounds of battle battered his ears, the singing blade and the striking of stone, until Rae thought his skull would burst. Finally the cacophony subsided. When Rae looked up, the two spiritbinders had staggered back, watching each other warily.
Indrit’s skin was scored by a dozen deep ruts that glowed along the edges like fresh magma. The justicar’s bronze flesh was streaked with divine blood, and the fury burning in his eyes was as hot and bright as a furnace.
“You will have to do better, justicar,” Indrit growled.
“I shall,” the lawbinder answered. “I always do.”
Indrit rumbled forward, his massive feet sinking into the mud of the square, shaking the earth under Rae’s chest. He drew back his blade and swung it, cutting the air like a thunderclap, moving faster than something that large should be able to move. The lawbinder blocked, blocked again, his sword spattering golden cinders as it slid across Indrit’s blade. The justicar flitted into the air with a sweep of his wings, trying to fly free of Indrit’s persistent attacks. The stonebinder swatted him to the earth like a bug. The blow formed an angel-shaped hole in the mud, baking the earth into clay with his burning aura. Indrit reversed his grip and prepared to drive the lawbinder into a makeshift grave.
The justicar rolled away, baked earth shattering as he fled. He landed on his feet, spreading wings for stability as he faced off against Indrit. The few citizens around him who had survived the initial assault scrambled away, dragging broken loved ones with them through the mud. The justicar ignored them.
“I don’t know who you are, heretic, but whatever your plan, I will foil it,” the justicar growled. “Order shall return to this steading. Chaos will be defeated, today, by my hand!”
“Whatever,” Indrit said. He edged closer to the windship gangway. The picket line of soldiers shifted uneasily, unsure how they could stop this juggernaut, should the lawbinder fail. They hadn’t even reloaded their firelocks yet. Rae thought about making a run for it.
“I think we can make it!” Rae hissed to his sister. He pointed at the ragged line of soldiers. “They’re too caught up in the fight. If we rush them, we can—”
The justicar howled his righteous fury and charged forward. Indrit fell into a blocking stance, but the lawbinder didn’t seem to care. He hacked at Indrit’s stony blade, chipping off shards of rock with each blow. The air filled with splinters of glowing stone and the screaming howl of the lawbinder’s holy blade. Indrit struck back, punching wildly with his pommel at the lawbinder’s chest, but the justicar danced aside with a flap of his wings. He braced against the ground and hacked down at Indrit’s exposed shoulder. The sword sank into the fissured skin of the stonebinder’s neck, drawing a scream from Indrit’s throat. The lawbinder drew his sword free, pulling it through Indrit’s flesh like a saw through stubborn wood. Rocks cracked and tumbled free. Indrit drew back, protecting the wound as he glared at the lawbinder.
Another strike, this one aimed at Indrit’s head. The stonebinder ducked, lifting both arms over his head, putting the flat of the blade in the justicar’s path. At the last second, the lawbinder changed the direction of his blow, landing it heavily into Indrit’s side. Stones shattered, and even as Indrit flinched away, the lawbinder whirled his blade around, chopping down into the man’s opposite shoulder. The sword sang as it flew through the air. Indrit went to his knees. The impact of his fall shivered the buildings and shook tiles from a dozen roofs.
There was no mercy in the lawbinder’s eyes. He rained a series of blows down on Indrit’s shoulders, slicing stone and breaking flesh. Indrit began to fall apart. The stonebinder dropped his sword, and the blade shattered into a loose scree of steaming pebbles that rolled across the ground like dice. The stones around Indrit’s head tumbled free, starting an avalanche of splintered rock that traveled down his chest and spread across his limbs. Hundreds of fist-sized rocks spread out from him, forming a pile of loose gravel that steamed like hot coals in the light. Indrit’s mortal body slumped in the middle of the pile, buried from the waist down in the remnants of his broken elemental. The stonebinder tried to sit up, blinking swollen eyes against the brilliant light of the lawbinder. His face was a misshapen lump of bruises and matted blood.
The justicar stood in front of him, arms spread wide, the sword sizzling and trailing sparks into the mud. The burning mantle of his wings rose into the air. He stepped forward, placing a heavy foot on the pile of stones, as though he was going to ascend a mountain.
“Justice!” he bellowed, voice carrying to the far reaches of the Bastion. “Has been served!”
He drew the burning blade over his head and swept it down. Indrit’s head joined the stones, rolling down the pile to land wetly in the mud. A spurt of blood fountained from the severed trunk of his chest, once, twice, and then the stonebinder was still.
“Bravo, lawbinder!” A voice came down from on high, as though Heaven brought its praise to the performance. “Well executed. Well fought.”
Rae craned his head up to the sky. There, above the lone windship, dangling from the highest tier of the docking spire, stood the high mage in his isolation suit. He had one hand against the warding antenna. The antenna was the device that enforced the Bastion’s Order, amplifying the signal from the spinning wards on the wall. It held the steading together. It held the Bastion together. It was all that was keeping Chaos from the breach from washing over them all.
A gesture from the high mage, and the steel and bound stone of the antenna turned black. The darkness spread like ink on paper, rushing down the spire. There was a trembling moment. And then the whole structure twisted into nothingness, ash shuffling across the steel, dissolving into a cloud of smoke that lingered for the briefest time—a heartbeat, less. It fell apart.
Everything fell apart.
Chapter Fifteen
The storm crashed down on Hammerwall. Driving rain lashed the market square, and thunder echoed between the buildings. An unnatural wind scoured the crowd. The downpour burned like fire. Rae threw his coat over La’s head, ducking close to his sister as the squall line slammed into them. The mob, already driven to panic, went mad.
“We have to get out of here!” Rae yelled. The rain, viscous and foul, was already eating through his coat. He could feel his fingers blistering in the wind.
“Where do we go? Where?” La shouted. “The Bastion has fallen! Where do we go?”
“Away from this mess,” Mahk said. He shifted, trying to put himself between the winds and the siblings, but the swirling eddies of the storm made it a hopeless task. He blinked into the searing rain. “More are going to die from this press than that storm!”
“Right enough,” Rae agreed. “Follow me. We have to get past the squall line and into the wastelands. We can make our way south from there, to Anvilheim, or Oesterling.”
“That’ll take days!” La shouted.
“Weeks,” Rae said. “Come on!”
The mob pressed its way to the gates, the very entrance they had just poured through. The windship, clipped by the destruction of the spire, twisted in the wind like a torn pennant. Flames guttered through its hull, and its crew was either jumping off or being thrown free of its decks. Bodies fell all around them, joining their bloody weight to the grim deluge. Rather than risk the crush, Rae ran in the other direction. There had to be another way out of the slaughterhouse the Bastion had become. They just had to find it.
At the edge of the square, Rae paused and looked back. Indrit’s headless corpse lay almost peacefully at the center of the madness, slumped against the cobblestone remnants of his elemental, as though he were asleep. There was more to the big bondwright than Rae had known. More to all of this. He wished he had had time to learn more about the man. He might have been able to help, Rae thought. No longer.
A few feet away, the lawbinder stood his ground. A small globe of burning light surrounded the justicar, rippling with each corrupted raindrop. The very citizens who had, moments ago, been ducking for cover as he slaughtered Indrit, now clung to his feet for shelter. The ground bubbled and hissed at the perimeter of this last true bastion of Order in the steading. Minor spirits of Chaos boiled out of the earth to throw their misshapen forms against the justicar, trying to drag him down. He fought hard, his face set with grim determination as the flaming blade of his manifest angel cut through the lesser spirits, splattering the ground with their ichor. The dome of light around him was waning. The darkness pressed in.
He looked up and locked eyes with Rae. Hatred burned in their depths. And then the storm crashed down on him, and the justicar disappeared beneath a wave of roiling filth and burning light.
“Stop gawking and move,” Mahk snapped. He grabbed Rae’s shoulder and pulled him out of the square. “That one’s made his choice.”
La was already down the street, cowering in the shelter of an abandoned shop. She turned and pinned Rae with her eyes.
I can’t leave her, not yet, Rae thought. This is my fault. I have to fix it.
He nodded to Mahk and tore himself away from the spectacle of the justicar. Just as they were about to slip out of sight, the windship finally surrendered to gravity and fell, spiraling, into the center of the square. The justicar, his doomed followers, and Indrit’s peaceful body disappeared in a crash of shattered wood and torquing metal. The anti-ballast shook free of the ’ship’s broken shell and flew into the air, to be tossed on the storm’s winds like a leaf. Rae turned and ran.
Detritus littered the street. Furniture lay toppled on the ground, drawers spilling fine clothes, now turning to ash in the burning rain. Lalette led them through the impromptu junkyard, vaulting cases of books. The buildings were starting to smudge, like drawings blotted out of existence by an impatient artist. In front of them, the walls of the Bastion rose above the rooftops. At least the walls are still standing, Rae thought.
Then again, if we can’t get through the walls, we’ll just be trapped in here to die.
An explosion behind them shook the ground. Rae twisted around just in time to see what must have been the guard armory’s supply of gunpowder erupt. A column of sparks shot into the air, splintering into a canopy of arcing light, as individual bundles of ammunition corkscrewed in a dozen different directions. The Chaos in the air latched onto this sudden influx of flame, corrupting it, twisting the fire into something living, something vile. Rae caught a glimpse of a screaming face in the flames, and a hand reaching through, dragging sulfurous fingers through the air.
And against the fire, he saw a figure, small and black, hovering over the ruined Bastion. The high mage, light from the explosion glinting off his isolation suit. His attention was turned toward the gates. He held up one hand, flicking it from side to side, as though he were sorting through the wreckage.
“He’s still here! He’s looking for us!” Rae shouted. Mahk paused long enough to spot the figure before grabbing Rae and pulling him into cover.
“Quiet, boy,” Mahk hissed. “No need to draw attention.”
Rae was about to protest being called a boy, especially by Mahk, who was probably a few years his junior. Before he could form his words, though, La grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged them both down the street.
“Stop screwing around, you two,” she said. “High mage or chaosstorm, either will kill us!”
The wind beat terribly against their heads. Rae had experienced storms laced with the elemental planes, and while a lightning storm drawn from Inferno, or a hailstorm powered by elemental earth was plenty terrifying, they were nothing compared to a chaosstorm. It was so much worse than he imagined.
The hurricane of Chaos churned against Hammerwall. Winds whipped from the depths of Hell etched blasphemous runes into the walls of the city. Smaller buildings collapsed like wet parchment, spilling their meager contents into the street. The cobblestones underfoot went soft, splintering like clay with each step.
The farther they got from the center of the Bastion, the worse the storm became. Wild winds whipped down the street, carrying a cloud of torn shingles through the air. A wooden silo tumbled into the street ahead of them, rapidly disassembling into splinters that pinwheeled through the air, caught in a mad eddy of chaos-driven wind. La threw herself to the ground, only to skid on the cracked scree of broken cobbles. Rae leapt forward to grab her before she was chewed alive.
